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Frank Rimieri, Adolph Koenig and Doctor Allan Mclane Hamilton – A dark day that cast a very long shadow…

Lloyd Sampsell, California’s ‘Yacht Bandit.’

Dwight Beard, a tale of two cities and (at least) two murders.

The case of Lena Baker, the only woman electrocuted in Georgia and, until Kelly Renee Gissendaler in 2015, the only woman executed there at all, is a prime example of Jim Crow justice. Granted, Baker was later issued a full, unconditional pardon (albeit decades too late), but she clearly should never have died in the first place. Born in Cuthbert, Georgia on June 8, 1901, Baker came into the…

Rainey Bethea probably isn’t an instantly familiar name, but he holds as unique a status in American crime as names like William Kemmler (the first man to be electrocuted) or Martha Place (Old Sparky’s first female victim). But his place in the annals of American crime is secured not by his being first, but last, the last American convict to suffer the indignity of a public execution. Born in…

Assassination of important and powerful political figures is nothing new and neither is it particularly rare. Four American Presidents, Mahatma Gandhi, Martin Luther King, Archduke Franz Ferdinand and Tsar Nicholas II’s entire family are a tiny percentage of public figures who died by the hand of an assassin. Assassination, either to advance a cause or settle personal grievance (real or imagined)…

Duelling was once an accepted practice in both European and American society. When two gentlemen had a disagreement, ‘a matter of honor’ in the language of the time, they would agree to meet and fight with either swords or pistols according to a strictly-defined code of conduct. The ‘Code Duello’ rigidly defined the rules and etiquette for such occasions. After all, gentlemen were gentlemen and…

Meet Lester Joseph Gillis, AKA ‘George Nelson,’ AKA ‘Baby Face’ Nelson though never to his face. It was a nickname he personally hated and, considering his hair-trigger temper and extraordinary capacity for senseless violence, was one people seldom used. A career criminal and homicidal sadist, Nelson had inherited the dubious mantle of ‘Public Enemy Number One’ in 1934 after the death of sometime…

November 26, 1940, Bedford Prison, England, 8am. Two experienced executioners, Thomas Pierrepoint and his nephew Albert, walk into the condemned cell and collect the comatose William Cooper from his cell and strap his arms behind his back. Cooper, only five feet five inches tall and weighing only 136 pounds, is unable to handle what is about to happen. He is catatonic and barely conscious,his…

On July 23, 1943 occurred one of the most bizarre and spectacular murders in British criminal history. Archibald Brown was a bitter, bullying, tyrannical and violent man who spent years ruling his family with a rod of iron. Even after a serious motorcycle accident left him permanently confined to a wheelchair his temperament remained as unpleasant and autocratic as ever. Always ready with choice…

It was just after 10pm on July 9, 1864 that Alfred Eakin was driving a train towards Fenchurch Street Station when he saw 69-year old city banker Thomas Briggs lying beside the tracks. Eakin stopped his train and checked to see if Briggs was still alive and moved him to the nearest safe place, the ‘Mitford Castle’ pub. Later renamed the ‘Top O’The Morning,’ that pub has long since closed, but a…

John Dillinger is a name familiar to everybody. Leader of the ‘Terror Gang,’ bank robber, escape artist, thief, killer, media darling and criminal icon. The very name represents lawlessness, violence, thievery and celebrity. Except that he wasn’t quite the criminal colossus that many seem to think he was. Even the 1973 movie ‘Dillinger’ and the more recent ‘Public Enemies’ take liberties with…